How Indonesian unicorn Go-Jek went from 20 bikes to US$2.5 billion and an e-money revolution

The company began life as a modest motorcyle-hailing company. Seven years on and it is making serious inroads into the world of electronic money

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A driver with the motorbike-hailing app by Indonesian start-up Go-Jek in Jakarta. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:32pm, 22 Oct 2017Updated: 12:32pm, 22 Oct 2017

Ten years ago, few could have predicted the mobile payment revolution in Indonesia would be driven not by the banking industry, but by a firm that started out as a motorcycle-taxi booking operation with just 20 riders.

But the home-grown technology start-up Go-Jek has come far from its humble beginnings seven years ago, transforming itself into one of a select group of Southeast Asian unicorns, with a market value of US$2.5 billion.

So successful has it become that it has earned the backing of Chinese tech giants Tencent and JD.com – and of top private equity firms KKR and Warburg Pincus – and has forced its rival Uber, valued at nearly US$70 billion, to rethink its approach to the Asian market by offering its own motorcycle hailing services. Along the way Go-Jek has expanded its transport offerings from two-wheelers to private cars and cabs and now offers on-demand services from beauty treatments and massages, to home cleaning and food and cargo deliveries.

One of its latest breakthroughs came last year when it entered the financial technology (fintech) sector with its launch of an e-wallet, Go-Pay, to facilitate cashless payments for all of the services offered through Go-Jek.

An advertisement for motorbike on-demand service Go-Jek at a railway station in Jakarta. Photo: AFP

Users of Go-Pay can top up credit via bank transfers or at ATMs and use this to pay anyone offering a service through Go-Jek. Those unbanked can top up the wallet via any one of 400,000 drivers in 50 cities.

However, Go-Jek hopes the e-wallet’s other features – it also facilitates mobile transfers between accounts and cash withdrawals from ATMs at partnering banks, can help it become Indonesia’s answer to WeChat, another Tencent-backed app, which has transformed digital payments in China.

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